


Sharper Blades

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Card 1 [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BTB Prompt: Cold-Blooded Torture, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood, Bone Breaking, But there's also a lot of hurt, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind the Tags, Nudity, Poor Cody, Poor Obi-Wan Kenobi, Torture, Vomiting, and there is comfort, flaying, obi-wan whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: Held captive by an unknown assailant, Commander Cody is firsthand witness to the torture of the General he is sworn to protect.Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Cold-Blooded Torture
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Card 1 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123604
Comments: 9
Kudos: 131





	Sharper Blades

**Author's Note:**

> YOOO, first Bad Things Happen Bingo Request and it was a real doozy!  
> Anonymous (and one other person, but I am doing a second prompt for them) requested Cold Blooded Torture and Codywan! 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy! Please R and R, let me know what you think ;) 
> 
> Also, please do read the tags for these. It has what it says on the tin and if that's not your thing, I won't be offended at all if you click away. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ewanmcgregorismyhomeboy12  
> There is my bingo card and requests are always open either publicly or anonymously!

There were things most beings got wrong about torture. They thought it was an endless, overwhelming stream of violence. Hours upon hours of thin blades slicing through skin and bones like paper, days straight of pounding fists or feet or whips, dozens of perfect planned burns imprinted into the skin in a never-ending cycle.

Cody had thought that, too.

Now he knew better. Most of the torture was in the cold. The hunger. The thirst. The panic. The raw aching in his limbs as they stayed pulled tight behind him. The cold stone on his bare skin after they had stripped them both of their clothes and belongings. And the silence. Bitter, bitter silence. The moments of assault and blood and horrible, panicked gasping for breath came only in short bursts. Those minutes drug as though each were a lifetime, but they always ended in the seeming seconds before he could gather the strength to finally tear himself free from the wall to stop them.

The moments after they left were the worst. He somehow was always standing, chest heaving as he pulled at the chains holding him in place, the cuffs getting tighter and tighter around his wrist with each pull. And they didn’t loosen when he stopped --they never loosened-- and he could feel the thin streams of blood running between his fingers from where they cute deep into his skin after they left, dripping onto the floor. Not that he could feel it until well after, sometimes until almost right before they had come back again, the adrenaline running through him keeping pain and hunger at bay for so long that when feeling would wash over him again, its sudden return made him ill.

But that was nothing. Nothing. Not compared to what they were doing to Obi-Wan.

Cody wasn’t their target. That much was clear. He didn’t know them, and they were hardly forthcoming with information about their identity. But their intent was clear enough.

They had been gone for what felt like hours this time. Time had lost tangible meaning: The dark blindingly bright lightbulb that swung in the corner never dimmed or brightened. The water that dripped from the ceiling in one corner stayed steady. He must have slept at some point, was certain they had been there long enough where he would have had to by now, but the time before sleep and after it held no difference and the time when his eyes were closed could have been a blink for all it amounted to. But they had brought food which he had taken to meant that the day, at some point, had rolled over.

Water, three mouthfuls in a metal cup that managed to be lukewarm despite the chill in the air. Some kind of rehydrated rations, barely enough to curb the sharp gnawing in his guts. He had to eat it with his back pressed flat to the wall to give his hands enough room to scoop it haphazardly into his mouth. At least he could eat his.

The door opened, and the same figure that always came, the one without a face, and moved to where Obi-Wan lay still on the floor. The tray that they had left hours earlier was there untouched. They reached down for him, spilling the water onto the floor where Cody knew it had to be soaking into his skin.

Cody saw Obi-Wan’s eyes open, glassy and distant as they lifted him onto the table. Cody wasn’t sure of the species of the being that came to them, covered head to toe in some sort of black robes. Whatever they were, they were strong enough to lift Obi-Wan with two of their four arms and fasten the clamps to the table around his wrists and ankles with the other. Cody couldn’t see Obi-Wan’s face after that, but he doubted they let him stay in that disconnected state for long. The shocks made sure he was well awake for whatever was coming.

When the shocks came, Cody couldn’t turn away. He watched Obi-Wan strain against his restraints, body convulsing in unnatural twitches. Obi-Wan’s breath came in harsh gasps afterwards, and Cody saw the familiar glint of a needle in one of the torturer’s covered hands. It slid into his vein on Obi-Wan’s arm closest to Cody and the reaction was immediate. Loud, exaggerated breaths slowed then sped again, but changed to short and rapid as if he were choking on any air that filled his lungs. His head, hair matted with blood and struck at odd angles, twisted side to side on the table. Cody had caught glimpse of his eyes only once, and there were days that he thought that he would look across their shared cell and see that look staring back at him from the shadows. He had gone through it in his mind and decided that it had to be some kind of force suppressant.

After the needle came the knife. One slice into his side, and the blade that caught in the dim light dripped red. Maybe nothing special today, then. That was all he could hope for. They moved then, one of the hands wrapping around Obi-Wan’s wrist, pinning his arm to the table.

Cody watched Obi-Wan’s head turn, watching as the blade came to his hand. For a moment, Cody thought they might start sawing at his wrist, but instead the tip pressed into his palm, a thin line of blood following its progression. Obi-Wan breathing quickened again, a second hand gripped at his fingers, holding them taut.

It was hard to track their goals from where he was. The blade wasn’t thick enough to slice through bones and their hands obscured most of their work. Then the sound split his ears. Not a scream. Not a shout or a moan or a scream, but a high pitched whine of protest. It hurt his ears to hear it twisted right along every nerve ending his had. He shifted on the floor, knowing protests were futile, but unable to stop the part of him desperate to stop them. The sound came again and he found himself on his feet, the persistent weakness in his limbs vanishing with this surge of rage. Perhaps that was how they meant to kill him, raise his stress levels over and over and over until he went to stand and instead collapsed to the floor. How long would it take to die that way?

It was only as he stood that he could finally see what was happening. They stopped at his shout, and the unblinking eyes that he could see through the slits in their mask seemed to mock him as he stared back. The edge of their knife twisted as they held Cody’s gaze and he watched the consequences, unable to make himself look away. The breath in his lungs froze, stilling the shout in his lungs.

There was slit along the center of Obi-Wan’s little finger, from the bottom of the top knuckle to the tip. As the blade twisted, the edge of the skin pulled free from the skin underneath and blood flowed sluggishly from the split. Obi-Wan was trying to pull his hands away, trying to jerk the fingers and as Cody watched, the bone in his finger gave way—caught immobile between two parts of iron grip. There was that sound again at the break, and Cody heard a scream form his own throat—though whether it was protest or an attempt to drown out that horrible sound, he couldn’t say.

The blade was pushed back into the open slit of skin, slicing whatever held it to the flesh underneath. Cody’s stomach roiled at the realization of what was happening, and the gray mash of rations he had eaten came up in a wave onto the floor in front of him. He fell to his knees, eyes burning with anger and pain and guilt as Obi-Wan’s whine turned into a low, droning scream. It didn’t sound like Obi-Wan. How much longer until he wasn’t Obi-Wan anymore?

It continued, until the screaming changed to a sort of begging. Cody didn’t register the change at first. But when he could make himself look up, the blade was at the base of Obi-Wan’s finger, now swollen a deep purple at the joint with the skin bright red with blood and irritation. As Cody watched, the last bit of his skin came free in the man’s hand. The begging continued, even as his hand was dropped to hand limply over the side of the table in a bloody mess. What was he saying? Cody was almost afraid to listen too closely, knowing in the back of his mind it was Obi-Wan begging the man to remove it.

The assailant stepped away from the table for a moment, packing away the blade in his robes and drawing a second syringe. The liquid in it was amber, barely a few millimeters of a dose, and always how they ended their sessions. More suppressants undoubtedly. Enough to keep him sedate as they undid the restraints keeping him bound to the table. The desperate please changed to low whimpers as the being moved him again, binding him to the wall. They paused before they left, looking at Cody who’s knees were starting to ache from the position he was in on the floor. The eyes staring back at him were cold and dark and laughing.

When they left, Cody thought about how often he had wished for something to break the silence. Now, the only sound was Obi-Wan’s startling agony, and he was overwhelmed with shame. Had his wishing brought this on them? Had he voiced his wishes without knowing? Given them some prerogative to do this as some sort of cruel joke?

He closed his eyes against the sound for a moment, and instead the smell of his own vomit filled his nose, the taste of it now lingering in his mouth. It almost made him vomit again, but there was hardly anything left in his stomach besides water and he desperately needed to keep it down. He swallowed against it, aching under his chest at the feeling of swallowing it back.

He moved away from the vomit as much as he could, exhaustion tugging at him now. He doubted sleep would come after everything and with Obi-Wan still making noise in the corner. He pressed his back to the wall, the stone scraping small cuts into it that he could barely feel, and closed his eyes.

“They’re coming for us, General,” He said, his own voice sounding unfamiliar in the small space, but it quieted whatever demons were plaguing Obi-Wan to a low whisper. “They won’t leave us here.”

It was after Cody said this empty promise that it occurred to Cody that they hadn’t even asked any questions.

* * *

“Is it hurting?” Cody turned onto his side on the cot at the noise Obi-Wan made. It was a horribly familiar noise that made Cody’s stomach twist at the memory. How long ago had that been? Some days, it seemed a different lifetime, other days it seemed as if they had only just left that place. As if it had been merely hours since Skywalker had burst into their cell as they were flaying the skin from Obi-Wan’s third finger and run whoever it had been through with his lightsaber without a second of hesitation.

There were moments, otherwise very joyful moments when he could press his thumbs to the sharp cuts over Obi-Wan’s hips and instead of the warm intimacy they were engaging in, they were back in that place, naked and staving and freezing in a never-ending night.

“Yes, well you know how it can get,” Obi-Wan said, and before Cody could reach for his hand, he was sitting up on the bed, peeling the bacta-infused glove he wore to bed off of his skin. Cody should have expected it: He had spent most of the day at the front of the company, slashing through thick underbrush with his lightsaber to clear them a path as they walked. The constant strain, the blistering heat of this godforsaken planet…it would have taken a miracle for it to have been anything but irritated. Cody sat up, watching first as Obi-Wan flexed his fingers. Even in the dark of the tent, he could tell they were swollen, his little finger bent oddly at knuckle as it had since it had been broken. He shifted slightly to take the bacta gel from the small table near the cot, and reached gently for Obi-Wan’s wrist.

There was no hesitation in Obi-Wan’s motions where there had been on more than one occasion. Cody had learned, over the years, how to reach for him in a way that wouldn’t cause panic, and how to smooth the cooling bacta over the scar tissue on his hands in a way that didn’t make him jerk his hand away. As he finished, he pressed his thumb to Obi-Wan’s palm, tracing the thin scar there, left behind from those very first moments.

“I’m sorry,” He said softly, old shame washing over him.

“It’s not your fault, Cody,” Obi-Wan reassured him, moving his hand to tug Cody to lie back down beside him. He didn’t move his hand away, letting Cody continue to run soothing circles over his palm. Cody looked at the roof of the tent as he felt Obi-Wan starting to settle into sleep next to him as the gel reduced the irritation, thinking back on those days spent in torment. How far would they have gone? Would they have flayed all of his fingers if they had stayed? Other parts of him? If Skywalker hadn’t arrived when he did, what would have been left for him to find? If it had never happened, would Cody have ever realized the extent to which he cared for his General? Far more than he should…

He closed his eyes, opening them only once to make sure that Obi-Wan was actually sleeping or at least close to it. He settled down again on the cot, wishing—not for the first time—that it was larger or that Obi-Wan would allow him to bring his own in and connect them together so they might have adequate space, and at the same time, was grateful that it kept them pressed together. He turned his hand, careful to avoid any of the scar tissue on Obi-Wan’s hand as he pressed both of their hands down against his abdomen. Sleep came in a slow wave, the bitter memory of the taste of vomit in his mouth and the sight of that first bit of tearing skin lingering for the start of his dreams.


End file.
